Creating an Extrospective Approach and Perspective for Democracy (Part Two)

The primary goal for the world’s nations should be to achieve peace and stability in the world, so that we can begin to transition as a world community from spending our combined resources and wealth on purchasing military manpower and hardware; to then begin to satisfy the basic needs and requirements of all the world’s people. It is often argued that we have too many people in the world and that we are running out of clean water and resources to take care of the existing world population – which of course is a false argument that omits the option of changing the status quo. For the price of an aircraft carrier, a fleet of advanced fighter aircraft, maintaining standing armies and conducting wars; we can take care of the physical needs of more people than we can ever count. The point is that as a world-wide population, we need leaders who can put an end to warfare and begin to take care of all the world’s people instead – to let them dream and achieve their goals and reach their full potential – and advance society towards higher levels of actualization. From the extrospective view of sharing this planet Earth as we all travel through the solar system together, this becomes the only rational and obvious goal for everyone to pursue and achieve.

This goal of allowing everyone to reach his or her full potential, requires applying a “continuous improvement” quality management extrospective approach – an “examination of matters outside oneself” – for democracy; in order to change everyone’s perspective from caring primarily about themselves and their family to caring for others in a selfless act of building up the community of mankind – looking outside themselves, their communities and their nations – to see how to help their fellow brothers and sisters around the world. This is not some ivory tower notion that can’t be achieved, because we know that there are many people and countries around the world doing this very thing today; all we have to do is convince everyone else to also follow this same path. The citizens of any nation and the world community as a whole shouldn’t have to struggle to secure food, clothing, healthcare, housing, employment and transportation requirements for themselves and their family members based on arbitrary lines called borders drawn on a map. Unless we are actively trying to move society in a positive direction towards increasing human progress, we are hindering future achievement through our inaction and lack of care and concern for everyone else that we share this planet with. I for one will try to do my best to convince the world that the only solution and outcome for the world is to come together and work as one towards achieving everyone’s maximum potential through global cooperation. But how?

Someone with even the most cursory knowledge of human history will be quick to point out that it can’t be done, it won’t work and no one can afford it anyway if we were to try to improve the living standards of everyone around the world. They will decry the formation of a world community or government, call for a stop to this universal cooperation of man helping man – and focus only on themselves and their family. In all of my travels around the world, I can honestly say that I have never traveled to a country or met people who I wouldn’t be happy to share a commitment with – in attempting to improve the entire world-wide community of mankind together – from Sweden and Norway to Kenya and Zambia, from France to the Middle East, and from Canada to the Bahamas. The very nicest people who I have ever met in the entire world were in Africa – despite the impoverished living conditions of their communities – they refused to allow their circumstances to dampen their childlike enthusiasm and joy for living. To want the very best for all of the world’s people doesn’t mean that I don’t love my country, because I do. What it means for me is that just because someone is born in a different country, expresses themselves through a different culture or language and may have a different ethnic origin – they are still my brothers and sisters. I understand it to be a moral imperative to help improve not only our own countries and communities, but also all of the other countries of the world as well – there shouldn’t be any differentiation in our desire to help.

There are two other main issues here to solve. The first point historians will say, is that there has always been fighting and warfare in the world and as soon as you attempt to disarm yourself, someone will take your country away from you and all will be lost. Throughout history the voices of peace and cooperation have been drowned out by the drum beats of conflict and warfare. The fact is that there has never been a time in our history when the vast majority of people in all the nations of the world have come together to insist on world peace and cooperation, in order to create a better world for themselves and for their children – and until we reach and respond to the rising crescendo of voices from all corners of the globe calling and demanding to have peace in the world – we will never know if the seemingly impossible is possible. Related to the clarion call for peace is the concept that someone or some nation will come along and take it all away if we all disarm and begin to build an advanced and free society of peace and cooperation around the world. At the moment there are only a handful of countries around the world that have not joined in with the world community in a cooperative way, that are capable of advancing militarily against other countries on a major scale – and it is in these few countries that their citizens need to demand in unison and rise up to insist – that their country beat their swords into plowshares. But how?

First of all, there has to be universal consensus and agreement between the world’s nations that this is the united goal for the future of the world. Secondly, nations need to deal with the few non-cooperative countries remaining and convince them that their future lies in friendship with the rest of the world and is in their own national interest; and offer them the hand of freedom and cooperation in love and compassion for their country and for their people. If this continues to remain an impossibility, and the non-cooperative country continues to remain non-cooperative, then the free nations of the world have to display a united front to isolate these nations and remove them as a threat to the rest of the world. Only in this manner will they no longer threaten anyone else in the future, and finally allow positive change for their citizens. The way to do this depends on the choices the noncooperative country decides to make. The reality is that only a handful of individual leaders stand in the way of world peace, and it is on those individuals that pressure has to be applied – and incentives need to be offered to – for them to ultimately choose peace and cooperation along with the rest of the world community. I’m not saying that this will be easy, but until we use up all the resources and options at our disposal in making the attempt for world peace, we will never know if it will succeed or not.

Once a consensus for peace is achieved by the powers of the world, the act of every country voluntarily disarming to only maintaining a defensive posture, is simply one of making incremental and verifiable reductions in forces and capabilities in all countries around the world until all nations fall below the threshold for making war – and many nations are already at that point today. So what if the entire process fails and a single country has secretly retained the ability to make war on the others? I for one will take that risk for peace as long as every attempt to disarm and verify has been made along the way. What is life worth if not to work towards peace for all the world’s people? I would rather stand up for peace in front of the tank and risk my life and freedom for all gain for the world – than cower in fear of failure – and for that never have even tried.

What about the total cost of raising the living standards and conditions of all the people of the world? Many would say that it could never be afforded or accomplished. First of all, if our resources were spent on people instead of preparing for and making war, there would be money enough to take care of all the world’s people; the technology and logistics of today could easily be used, developed and improved upon to bring fresh water, food, clothing, healthcare, housing, employment and transportation to the four corners of the Earth. The point of creating an extrospective approach and perspective for democracy requires that we all change our focus from “I” and “me” – to “us together” and “you.” So how do we convince others to care for complete strangers, for our own families and for ourselves? Everyone will say it can’t be done – until it is done – and we will explore that topic in Part Three.

’Life, Love and the Human Condition’ by Mark D. Jones

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